As I mentioned in my last blog, I came across my old baseball cards and was intrigued by how many of these people I didn’t know. They had achieved so much, but I didn’t recognize many of them. In thinking in terms of Mountaintop Life, I wondered how they had achieved their success in baseball, if they were able to maintain balance in their lives and what they were doing now. That last question was particularly interesting – did they continue to find success or did the ending of that phase of success make life harder after their retirement. I wondered what they were doing now.
I found one card that I noticed right away. Joel Adamson. Here is the picture that caught my eye:
He looked so young to me. Yet, he is wearing a Big League uniform. He made it to the majors. I wondered what his career was like. How long did he play? What did he do afterwards? What is important to him now.
I did a little research and found out that he was very successful in high school – both as a pitcher and as a hitter – that is a combination you don’t often find. Then, I learned something hard that I wondered what impact it had on Joel’s future – his career in the Majors was cut to only three short years because of a shoulder injury.
Fortunately, I was able to connect with Joel and talk with him. As I have found with many former MLB players – Joel is a great guy.
One of the first parts of our conversation is a lot of what you need to know about Joel. I asked him what it was like to reach the pinnacle of his sport. He replied, “Getting to the Majors isn’t the pinnacle. Being named an All Star is the pinnacle. That is what you want. To be named one of the best in the majors – that is what you strive for.”
In the first minutes of our conversation, I learned something: Keep striving…keep working to improve…keep setting your sights higher – even if you have achieved what others think is successful. It is so easy to get into a groove (or a rut or habits) and not even set goals. And/or it is so easy to get so busy that we are just doing so many things that we don’t take the time to think about what we hope to do or what difference we hope to make. Sometimes we find a little bit of success and it is surprising how easy it is to just coast on that.
But, are any of those things the best or most we can do with this life? You have unlimited potential. Well…I guess a better way of saying that is we have to be careful that we don’t limit our potential.
Do you have goals? Have you set them high enough? As another former MLB player and now Coach, Clint Hurdle, often says, “Make a difference today.” Do you have goals and plans to make a difference today?
I also wondered if a shortened MLB career discouraged and tainted Joel’s outlook on life. That will be the topic for our next blog. And, we will be featuring our interviews with other “faces on the cards” in upcoming blogs.